Rigging the patent game for the wealthy

Probably the most famous patent-troll case in recent years was the one where a troll named NTP managed to extract $612.5 million from Research in Motion. That case covered five different patents: of the five, the U.S. Patent Office had given “non-final” rejections to all of them, and had issued a final rejection to one, when the case was settled.

RIM had discovered prior art for all of the patents that NTP was suing over — but that didn’t really help them at all. The problem was that the patents had already been awarded to NTP, which meant that NTP was within its rights to sue RIM for as long as it held those patents. Once RIM found out what NTP was up to, it could and did challenge the patents at the U.S. Patent Office, which has a procedure for such things. But the U.S. Patent Office is an entirely separate entity from the U.S. District Court, where judge James Spencer made it very clear that his job was to rule only on whether RIM was violating NTP’s patents, and not on whether NTP’s patents were properly granted. Had RIM not settled the case, the court could and probably would have shut down the entire BlackBerry service.

RIM, of course, offered to post a substantially greater settlement if it could get the money back were NTP’s patents deemed invalid; NTP, naturally, rejected that offer. And challenging patents at the U.S. Patent Office takes time; if you’ve already been sued by a patent troll in U.S. District Court or just about anywhere else, it’s almost certainly too late at that point to look for prior art, take it to the USPTO, get the patent invalidated, and win the case that way. Meanwhile, it’s pretty much impossible to keep tabs on every patent awarded to a possible troll, and try to challenge those patents at the USPTO on the off chance that if you don’t, those patents might be used against you. Felix

Who are the villans? Repuiblican traitors and Communists:

Imagine a world in which any intellectual property holder can, without ever appearing before a judge or setting foot in a courtroom, shut down any website's online advertising programs and block access to credit card payments. The credit card processors and the advertising networks would be required to take quick action against the named website; only the filing of a “counter notification” by the website could get service restored.

It's the world envisioned by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) in today's introduction of the Stop Online Piracy Act in the US House of Representatives. This isn't some off-the-wall piece of legislation with no chance of passing, either; it's the House equivalent to the Senate's PROTECT IP Act, which would officially bring Internet censorship to the US as a matter of law.

Calling its plan a “market-based system to protect US customers and prevent US funding of sites dedicated to theft of US property,” the new bill gives broad powers to private actors. Any holder of intellectual property rights could simply send a letter to ad network operators like Google and to payment processors like MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal, demanding these companies cut off access to any site the IP holder names as an infringer.

Damn Republican Big Government Stalinists. Lamar Alexander is one good reason to vote for Obama.